Plan Your Trip Times Picks

CORRESPONDENT'S CHOICE

CORRESPONDENT'S CHOICE; ON PENANG ISLAND, A LEGEND LIVES

By Barbara Crossette; BARBARA CROSSETTE is chief of The Times bureau in Bangkok.

Published: June 30, 1985

They used to say, back in the early years of this century, that Arshak Sarkies ran his Eastern and Oriental Hotel in Penang as if he were entertaining friends, not trying to make money. Maybe that is why, more than 50 years and several owners after his death, the E & O is such a pleasure to come home to.

On the seafront in George Town, Penang Island's major town, the century-old E & O is one of only three survivors of the pre-World War II Sarkies Brothers hotel empire. It is by far the best of the three. By comparison, the Raffles in Singapore has minimal comforts and its Long Bar seems devoted to making production-line Singapore slings for package-tour groups. The Strand in Rangoon, always beloved by travelers, is off the beaten track and a little shabby. But the E & O, easy to get to from anywhere in Southeast Asia, is both comfortable and elegant.

Penang is now one of Malaysia's main tourist islands, with beaches (somewhat overrated) and new hotels, some of them high-rise. The downtown E & O, with only a rocky sea wall and a small pool, does not compete in that league. But it does offer luxurious rooms and suites, with sea views and cavernous baths, for about $60 to $80 (plus tax and service charge, 10 percent each).

The rooms have been updated, but the public areas have not been substantially altered - unusual in this booming part of the world, where old is out. The E & O has telephones now, but it also has its old polished-wood dance floor, tiled corridors, paneled walls, and enormous domed lobby with vintage elevator.

Everything about the E & O is conducive to settling down for a spell, as a traveler ending a long sea voyage a century ago might have hoped to do. Suites and rooms are apartment-sized and opulent. The staff is always at hand but never in the way. And then there is that glorious view of the straits separating Penang Island from Peninsular Malaysia.

Dining at the E & O reflects the hotel's Colonial past. Western food predominates, although Chinese-Malay dishes are served at the nighttime outdoor barbecue.

The Anchor bar and restaurant, with a terrace overlooking the straits, strives for the atmosphere of a British pub or country inn. It almost makes it, if you can discount the piped-in music.

Open all day, the Anchor offers casual meals and snacks, including hamburger platters for less than $5 and a nice nasi goreng, or fried rice with accompaniments, for about $2. The sandwiches are anemic, but the fish and chips are excellent and under $4.

The terrace is at its best early in the morning or after sundown. Malaysia is hot and humid all year, and by 9 A.M. the heat on the terrace can be unbearable. Nasty plastic chairs and a fiberglass sunroof, chosen for some reason over the local rattan and thatch, do not help.

The E & O's 1885 Grill, also with a sea view, is classier. It specializes in traditional European and American fare, for perhaps double or triple the cost of a meal at the Anchor, where you can eat for under $10. Alcoholic drinks are taxed steeply in Malaysia (as in Singapore and now in Thailand), and this can inflate the bill. The room has recently been elegantly redone, with well-spaced tables and a lounge corner with blue velvet sofas and chairs.

From the Grill, an ornate tiled corridor leads to the white-tiled lobby, which has green velvet furniture and a palm-court collection of potted plants. On the corridor and lobby walls, old prints and clippings tell the history of Penang and the E & O. Jack Chia Enterprises, the Malaysian company that now owns the E & O, tries to keep the Sarkies legend alive.

The E & O opened in 1884 as the Eastern, a new venture for the Sarkies family, Armenians who had been successful in business in British Singapore since the 1820's. In 1885 the Eastern was joined to its even newer next-door neighbor on the seafront, the Oriental, originally planned as a separate hotel.

By the turn of the century the E & O had become the social center not only of Penang Island, the first British foothold in Malaysia, but also of nearby mainland communities. Throughout the age of planters and adventurers, the E & O held the banquets, balls and weddings of the rich. Rudyard Kipling was a guest, as were Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward.

Arshak Sarkies took over the management from his older brothers in the 1890's. A friend to many of the hotel's guests, he was known to have paid the fares of destitute rubber planters trying to return to Europe after the Malaysian rubber trade slumped. He was in bankruptcy himself when he died in 1931, and his family was evicted from the small corner of the property where they had always lived.

Outside the E & O, an elderly Tamil rickshaw driver seems to be always on duty to pedal visitors for a dollar or two to Fort Cornwallis or Chinatown or farther afield. Because George Town is more or less flat, the rickshaw - called a trishaw here - is about the pleasantest way to see much of the city. Taxis also stand by for trips into the hills or to the beaches.

Penang, originally Island of the Betel-Nut Tree in the Malay language, was claimed for the British East India Company in 1786 by Capt. Francis Light, who called it Prince of Wales Island. The island attracted many Chinese immigrants, who built it into a commercial center, and ethnic Chinese account today for more than half the island's population of more than half a million.

Sometime during the last decade, Penang became not only a prime resort island but also the center of Malaysia's electronics industry. The contrast between the town, which has a 76-story building said to be Southeast Asia's tallest, and the rest of Penang Island, with its rural villages and wooden houses skillfully decorated with carvings and ornamental railings, is startling.

The Eastern and Oriental Hotel is at 10 Farquhar Street, George Town, Penang. Telephone 375322.